Micrometeoroids are not made of fire or brass and they don't kill you because they're hot; they kill you because they hit you with the same sort of velocity and release the equivalent energy of a high power bullet.

Apart from that, plus the bizarre notion of passing "beyond the region of the heavens", the kerrang got it dead right.

(October 31, 2014 at 1:45 pm)Aoi Magi Wrote: I sometimes think the one-world-language would actually be a very good idea.

We already had one. It didn't play out very well. (Gen 11)

(October 31, 2014 at 2:27 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(October 31, 2014 at 1:45 pm)Aoi Magi Wrote: I sometimes think the one-world-language would actually be a very good idea.

We already had one. It didn't play out very well. (Gen 11)

This time, tell your jealous and insecure god to butt out.

(October 31, 2014 at 1:32 pm)Brian37 Wrote: That is the unfortunate thing about humans, we are so wrapped up in thinking our clubs and politics and religions are unique we don't understand the evolutionary reality that our species perceptions are notoriously flawed.

It's sheer arrogance. During the last few decades scientists learn more and more about animal intelligence and their ability of abstract thinking. They're different than our species, but that doesn't mean they're less suited for their own environment. Sometimes they even show compassion.

There's a video around on the internet, showing a Zodiac at a hungarian zoo, fishing a flapping and drowning crow from a pond. He could have ripped the bird apart with his teeth, but he gently lifted it by the wing, put it on dry land and went on to have a snack, which wasn't the bird.

Come to think of it, I was an agnostic atheist for most of my life. As a child I was afraid of what god could do to me or my loved ones. That's what those theological bastards told us at every given opportunity. I never even tried to comprehend the trinity. For me, Jesus was kind of the good guy, who had this angry old man as a father. But I never really prayed. I tried it a few times, but it didn't sit well with me and bored me rigid. So I grew up, still calling myself a catholic, but really not giving a damn until I grew that angry with that whole religious business to call myself what deep down I've always been.

For any theist, I would really recommend to watch some videos about animal intelligence. Maybe somewhere along the line, some of them might learn that we're not that special, unique and adorable. And that this passage from Genesis is actually presumptuous bullshit: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

(October 31, 2014 at 2:30 pm)abaris Wrote:

(October 31, 2014 at 1:32 pm)Brian37 Wrote: That is the unfortunate thing about humans, we are so wrapped up in thinking our clubs and politics and religions are unique we don't understand the evolutionary reality that our species perceptions are notoriously flawed.

It's sheer arrogance. During the last few decades scientists learn more and more about animal intelligence and their ability of abstract thinking. They're different than our species, but that doesn't mean they're less suited for their own environment. Sometimes they even show compassion.

There's a video around on the internet, showing a Zodiac at a hungarian zoo, fishing a flapping and drowning crow from a pond. He could have ripped the bird apart with his teeth, but he gently lifted it by the wing, put it on dry land and went on to have a snack, which wasn't the bird.

Come to think of it, I was an agnostic atheist for most of my life. As a child I was afraid of what god could do to me or my loved ones. That's what those theological bastards told us at every given opportunity. I never even tried to comprehend the trinity. For me, Jesus was kind of the good guy, who had this angry old man as a father. But I never really prayed. I tried it a few times, but it didn't sit well with me and bored me rigid. So I grew up, still calling myself a catholic, but really not giving a damn until I grew that angry with that whole religious business to call myself what deep down I've always been.

For any theist, I would really recommend to watch some videos about animal intelligence. Maybe somewhere along the line, some of them might learn that we're not that special, unique and adorable. And that this passage from Genesis is actually presumptuous bullshit: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

You can clearly see in evolution that other species display the same emotions and can learn and adapt. Cognition in evolution is emergent. Our
evolution gives humans a higher level of cognition, unfortunately our egos allow us to mistake that level as being above evolution and not simply one species in evolution. Cockroaches cannot write Shakespeare, but reproduce at a higher rate than humans and are far more likely to survive a nuclear war caused by human narcissism.

(October 31, 2014 at 2:27 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(October 31, 2014 at 1:45 pm)Aoi Magi Wrote: I sometimes think the one-world-language would actually be a very good idea.

We already had one. It didn't play out very well. (Gen 11)

Well played.

Must mean that Star Trek The Motion Picture had it wrong. It's really prophecy and God will send V'Ger back to kick our ass for being uppity again.

(October 31, 2014 at 2:43 pm)Cato Wrote:

(October 31, 2014 at 2:27 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: We already had one. It didn't play out very well. (Gen 11)

Well played.

Must mean that Star Trek The Motion Picture had it wrong. It's really prophecy and God will send V'Ger back to kick our ass for being uppity again.

Si fi woo does not get a pass from me either. Gene did not invent the cell phone. Microwave technology existed in WW2. The idea of hand held communication was something inventors were working on. It is common in all business models to do things with the least material because that decreases costs. All Gene did was popularize an idea that inventors were working on.

Think about all the other things that serious depicts that will never be a reality like Tribbles and Klingons. And the "Transporter" was nothing more than the economics of having to film a "shuttle" built physical prop vs using video mix of "static" with a green screen.

Unfortunately even today si fi fans fall for that crap. NASA put out an article about the "warp drive". Si fi fans jumped all over it as proof it was a possibility missing the part of the article that reduced the concept as merely being on paper. The article also said to accomplish the "warp drive" it would take all the energy in the universe to accomplish.

(October 31, 2014 at 3:05 pm)Brian37 Wrote: Si fi woo does not get a pass from me either.

No shit. I'm quite confident that you would find being blown by a porn star sheer misery to the extent that you would stop her in order to critique her technique.

(October 31, 2014 at 7:14 am)Brian37 Wrote: No, science does not claim to know everything.

True as far as it goes, but what religionists (almost) always fail to grasp is that science provides a methodology for finding out what it doesn't know. That's the grand and misunderstood thing about science: It isn't simply a collection of facts - it is a way of interpreting facts to find out OTHER facts. I'm unaware of any religion that can justifiably claim the same.

Boru

(October 31, 2014 at 3:17 pm)Cato Wrote:

(October 31, 2014 at 3:05 pm)Brian37 Wrote: Si fi woo does not get a pass from me either.

No shit. I'm quite confident that you would find being blown by a porn star sheer misery to the extent that you would stop her in order to critique her technique.

Huh?

Not sure what you mean by that remark. It still amounts to in reality for any given claim that SURE you can claim what you want as a human rights issue. But one's own personal bias and mental masturbation does not mean shit.

Gene was certainly a great conveyor of compassion and pluralism even to the point he rejected the bosses insisting on a ship Chaplin as a character.He rejected that because he believed, and rightfully so, that Christianity was not the center of the planet. But our good intent does not as a species equate to our own bias being objective reality. Otherwise Kingons would be real by proxy of depiction.